Post-1980s religious norms and practices shaped everyday lives of Indian Muslims in a very palpable way because their replacement by any other value system or laws was not only resisted, but also rejected.
For example, in 1985 the Shah Bano case of maintenance after divorce,1 the Supreme Court judgement was retracted because of the opposition from the Muslim community. This case, along with the emergence of Muslim women groups post—The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 and triple talaq judgements in the beginning of 1990s, marked the beginning of the Muslim women’s rights discourse in India.
On the other hand, the polemics of identity politics and minority rights emerged; thus the counter campaign of sanctity of personal laws by religious leaders gained an impetus. All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which was formed for protecting Muslim Personal Law (MPL), has not come out with any substantial reform since its formation. In fact, the organization has been termed as retrograde after opposing the Shah Bano judgement and favouring the 1986 bill. The cost of safeguarding personal laws is sometimes too heavy for Muslim women especially dependent on natal families. Their hardships —first from their economic dependence and then from personal laws — is enough to limit the safeguards other women enjoy under constitutional laws.While the male leadership of the community bargains for defense of MPL and resists any attempt at change, All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) is the organization that works for the promotion of rights ofwomen in Islam in terms of abolition of the practices of triple talaq, halala,2 etc. It defends shariat (religious law) and wants its actual teachings to be implemented by paving way for new legislations for women’s rights. Marriage, divorce and halala are the three main issues in which the board needs legislative changes to be incorporated in order to make family laws gender just and secure for women.
AIMWPLB provides a female legal space to articulate claims of justice for destitute women.
It was formed by Shaista Amber in 2005, in the outskirts of the city of Lucknow. The area is predominantly upper-middle class Hindu dominated, a new neighborhood near the city airport with modern homes and pockets of Sunni Muslim households. Amber comes from a humble background and is a graduate with religious education from home. Basically from Allahabad, after her marriage she decided to settle in the outskirts of Lucknow and work from there. Amber uses purdah as a symbolic practice to help her gain support and reflect the conservative image most of the community will look up to.The inception of the formation of AIMWPLB came in a wedding function, where middle class Shia and Sunni women shared their idea of the formation of an all-women board and all had the ‘common belief that the dignity and freedom of Muslim women were being subverted by the chauvinistic and selective interpretations of the Quran and the shariat’.3 The board as an institutional forum has provided a shared space for Shia female members and since the beginning has worked against the doctrinal and sectarian fragmentations of Islam. Shia and Sunni women joined the board and this diversity is still visible at its organizational level. According to Mengia Hong Tschalaer,
As a Board composed of Shias and Sunnis they hope to bridge the gap between the otherwise strongly divided members of the different Islamic schools in Lucknow. The members of the AIMWPLB opine that the politics surrounding religious identity, where the differences between Shias and Sunnis are expressed through ideological differentiations, had become obstructive to the realization of Muslim women’s rights.4
As Amber was keen for studies, there was always a quest in her to know the reasons of Islamic progress in earlier eras, and in contemporary times the reasons for its decline. This made her read the Quran thoroughly, including some of its interpretations from Ahl-e-hadith,5 Abu Ala Mawdudi (Islamic thinker) and Abul Qarim Parekh (founder-treasurer of AIMPLB).
She says,I am still in the process of learning Quran and its interpretation. I am very much influenced by Zakir Naik (religious preacher from Ahl-e-hadith sect) because he talks authentic. I can ignore his some of the things like he compares religion rashly. I believe in Sufism and we should strive to be Sufis because there is flexibility in it. I do not visit Sufi shrines as such but I invoke blessings of revered Sufis like Sheikh Abdul Qadir Geelani in my prayers. Sufis like him did not differentiate between Islamic sects.6
In Islamic discourse, according to Leila Ahmad, a marginalized discourse such as Sufism was able to preserve the Islamic message of ethical equality of men and women. Ahmad talks about two divergent voices within Islam which define the gender relations in the society — pragmatic and ethical. It is the ethical and spiritual dimension in Islam that she says stresses the equality of individuals irrespective of gender, and Sufism as an institution upheld this dimension. According to her, had this voice been strongly emphasized, it would have tempered the misogynist belief of Islam.7 Amber through her board tries to bridge the gap between the textual and spiritual aspects of Islam.
Shaista Amber is of the opinion that concerns of women are not adequately dealt with by the clergy among the Muslim community, who are males and believe in selective reading of the Islamic texts according to the prescribed instructions of the particular madhab (legal school) they belong to. According to her,
Majority of religious scholars do not encourage women to move ahead in any manner and do not show generosity to them. The non-inclusion of women in religious gatherings of the ulama (clerics) is the biggest impediment to their learning. However, reality is that during the time of the prophets and caliphs, women used to be partners in every area according to their caliber and their views were equally given importance.8
I.
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